The present disclosure relates generally to medical devices and, more particularly, to medical sensors for monitoring physiological characteristics.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to aspects of the art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In the field of medicine, doctors often desire to monitor certain physiological characteristics of their patients. To allow such monitoring, various types of sensors and monitors may be employed by caregivers. For example, to measure certain characteristics, optical based sensors may be utilized that transmit electromagnetic radiation, such as light, through a patient's tissue and then photo-electrically detect the absorption and scattering of the transmitted or reflected light in such tissue. The physiological characteristics of interest may then be calculated based upon the amount of light absorbed and/or scattered or based upon changes in the amount of light absorbed and/or scattered. In such measurement approaches, the light passed through the tissue is typically selected to be of one or more wavelengths that may be absorbed and/or scattered by one or more constituents of the blood or tissue in an amount correlative to the amount of the constituents present in the blood or tissue.
Other types of sensors may also be used to measure various physiological characteristics of a patient. For example, certain types of sensors (such as electrocardiogram (ECG) or electroencephalogram (EEG) leads) may measure electrical potentials or properties that can yield physiological information. Other types of sensors may measure internal or external temperature of a patient or may detect acoustic or sound data that can be related to physiological characteristics of a patient. Such temperature or acoustic data may in turn be used to derive data about a physiological characteristic of the patient.
The various types of patient sensors may communicate with respective monitoring equipment or devices. For example, a patient monitor, such as a pulse oximeter, may receive data from a corresponding sensor and determine a corresponding physiological characteristic. However, monitoring of multiple physiological characteristic requires use of multiple sensors, monitors, diagnostic tools, etc. For example, monitoring of each physiological characteristic of interest may use a different sensor, different cables, different monitors, etc. Typically, each sensor may only be capable of monitoring one physiological characteristic at a time. Further, any configurability may be limited, as the hardware in the sensor may be selected and configured to monitoring one physiological characteristic.